


UTC-5, UTC+1

by Metis_Ink



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Fluff, M/M, because tfc, dash of angst, did u know???? they are disgusting, feat. lena the broom paladin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 01:44:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6883927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metis_Ink/pseuds/Metis_Ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik Klose is a simple man with about several thousand anxieties. Nicky Hemmick is the unironic cause and cure for many of them. It would help if he wasn't involved in a murder sport.</p>
            </blockquote>





	UTC-5, UTC+1

**Author's Note:**

> HAHA! Bet you saw the last of me!! Fools !! 
> 
> Anyways HI SARAH. So like. This is technically a commission. For Sarah. Long story it became a commission trade bc apparently we are hunter gatherers BUT. Here it is. Klommick for the soul. [blares horn] everything is german

 

“I don’t like exy.”

There’s a lot less yelling and flailing than Erik expects. Instead, it takes a minute for Nicky to go still, back off, and glower at Erik like he brought up the dog discussion again.

“Really? Now?” Nicky seems offended. “When my mouth is on your neck? I thought you liked that.”

“I do.” A lot. It’s the kind of activity that makes Erik’s thoughts scream by like a freight train until they somehow reel back to _I want this. How could I not have this? What if he leaves me? Why would he leave me? Because you don’t like fucking exy you fucking idiot why else would he-_ “I just thought you should know.”

“Why would you…” Nicky pauses. It takes a second for him to process everything he knows about Erik all over again and give him that know-it-all smile. He plants and exaggerated kiss to Erik’s temple and tells him, “Come on, _Schatz_ , I’m not Kevin. I’m not going to dump you because of exy.”

“You said it wrong,” Erik says, but it’s only an excuse to kiss him again. Nicky’s never learned how to get rid of his American accent, but that’s fine. He has time to practice. “ _Schatz_.”

“ _Schatz_ yourself.” Nicky takes his hands off of Erik’s neck to press their palms together. He dodges when Erik tries to kiss him again. “I can handle soccer if you can handle exy.”

“Football,” Erik corrects him again.

“Please, I literally just left Southern US. Let me live,” Nicky groans, except his voice cracks when he recalls that past year. He grins it off like he always tries to do, but there’s little Nicky will ever let himself leave behind.

So Erik pushes him up against the couch and allows Nicky to live until neither of them can think anymore.

 

* * *

 

The truth is, Erik finds exy itself alright. But when exy has fucked over someone you love too many times over, you start to lose respect for the culture.

“I heard that exy tournament you went to went to hell,” Lena tells him at work one day. “Like a dude and a half are dead. Your boyfriend okay?”

“He’s doing the best he can,” Erik tells her, to which she sighs. Lena’s been on that spiral downwards from her _My Boss Is Gay And Only_ _I Know_ position ever since Erik came out to everyone else months ago, and she’s still in the sulking phase. It still hasn’t stopped her from attacking homophobes with a broom, which Nicky had loved hearing about. Erik appreciates anything that can help cheer Nicky up. “He’s skyping his team as much as he can.”

“If he doesn’t come soon, the office is going to start thinking he’s not real,” Lena says. She looks down at his computer. “I take it you didn’t like the game?”

“What makes you say that?”

“You started typing more aggressively than usual when I mentioned it.” Erik pauses at her words and flexes his fingers. “Only I know because I know you’re just big and worrisome and don’t eat babies for breakfast.”

Erik gives her a disapproving look. He knows he can come off as cold to people who don’t know him well, but there is no way that rumor is real. Lena waves at him to grab his attention. “I liked the game. They won.”

“ _I’ve_ met Nicky,” Lena says in her Unlike Everyone Else voice, “and he saw one of his friends get attacked right in front of him. And the last time that happened you told an entire meeting room to fuck off so you could take care of him. Remember?”

He does. He remembers halfway through Max’s speech when Nicky called him, short of breath and incomprehensible. Erik usually turned his phone during meetings, but it was pure luck that he’d been distracted at the time and forgotten.

It was just because Will as trying to be an asshole that he had asked, “Where you going, Klose, girlfriend need you more than us?”

“My boyfriend needs me more than you right now, thanks for asking,” Erik had snapped back before common sense could catch up, and then left the room in one swift motion. He barely even thought about it until after the call had been over, and didn’t even consider the consequences until the next day.

Erik bites his lip at the memory. “That probably wasn’t the best way to come out.”

“Not really.”

 

* * *

 

“Okay, if I don’t learn how to make black forest cake soon, my relationship with Andrew is over,” Nicky says as he dumps a canister of chocolate powder into the cart. They’re at Aldi trying to stock food for Nicky’s summer stay, and Nicky is obviously not okay. “Is there any way to make it healthier? I swear to god, Aaron’s apparent allergy to junk food is out of spite for him.”

“You could make it vegan,” Erik suggests, leaning against the cart as he arranges the coffee boxes into neat little rows.

“Would they buy it?” Nicky shivers. “I feel like I’m handing them a time bomb, and it’s not like I can ask you for help.”

Erik manages a rare, apologetic smile. “Sorry, only Dad knows how to make black forest cake decently.”

Nicky raises and eyebrow at him. “You act as if we won’t be seeing him while I’m here.”

Well… “I thought maybe you’d like some time off to cool your head. Dad tends to smother you when he’s worried.”

“Why would he—”

“Nicholas,” Erik says to catch his attention. His smile fades. “We’ll stop worrying when you stop talking about the twins abandoning you.”

Nicky fumbles with the jar of cherries he’s picked up, and Erik lunges forward to catch it. He catches Nicky’s hands on the jar instead, and notices how tense they are. He’s clutching onto them like he’s clutching onto his relationship with his cousins. Desperately.

Nicky’s always worn his heart on his sleeve, as much as he’s hated it. Erik can’t tell him he loves it; that that sensitivity helps Erik waking up in the morning sometimes, knowing someone has the capacity to understand. It’s strange that Nicky claims the same of him.

Against his touch, Erik feels Nicky relax. “Do you think they’ll forget about me?”

“No one could forget about you,” Erik tells him.

“I’m having an emotional breakdown in a supermarket, that’s what I’m memorable for,” Nicky says, but pouts like it’s a joke and places the cherries into the cart next to the coffee boxes. Erik’s moved his hand to Nicky’s shoulder. “Sorry.”

Which is to say, _Sorry, I’m not used to expressing myself like this because the Foxes have more to deal with than me and I can feel the walls come down when I’m around you. Sorry for being a mess. I’m trying so hard and it hurts so much._ But he doesn’t say all of that because he’s Nicky Hemmick.

“We can call him when we get home,” Erik suggests. “And then we can call them and ask for their opinion.”

That makes Nicky laugh. “I hope Katelyn’s with Aaron. She’d probably even get him to tell me about his week.”

Erik hums. “He’s probably learned from last time.”

“So has she.” Nicky grins, and he feels warm and whole again in Erik’s eyes. He gives Erik’s shirt collar a tug and the day goes on.

 

* * *

 

It’s not that Erik doesn’t like exy because of the violence. Hockey wasn’t much different and Erik had been a fan of both until Nicky joined the Foxes. And then came the controversy, and the Ravens, and Riko Moriyama. Always Riko Moriyama. Nicky getting close to that felt like watching him go to war. In a way, it wasn’t much different.

He told Nicky that nobody could forget him, except sometimes it felt like they did.

Maybe Erik’s biased. Nicky’s always been giving himself away to people, to his parents, to Aaron, to some cousin he didn’t even know existed, and even to Erik and his parents. Nicky doesn’t let people know that he’s hurting or lonely, but Erik was there when Nicky was rejected by everyone he loved. He knew what Nicky looked like broken.

Or maybe it’s because Nicky let someone take care of him for once, and that person just happened to be Erik, even if it was just to be shown around Germany. Nicky had been much more outspoken than Erik imagined him to be, if not overwhelming. But it’s the nervousness Erik tapped into, the underlying fear. At the time, it made Erik suspicious when it should have made him scared, and that annoyed Nicky until—

“My parents think I like girls,” he had blurted out, making Erik freeze. They’d been fighting, all Erik had accused was that Nicky didn’t trust his family, but that pissed Nicky off and Erik told him he was transparent and— “Okay? I’m not…” He’d phased between angry and halfway to fainting. “They keep calling and they say “Oh, maybe you’ll find a girl over there! Bring her home and show her off to the family, Nicky!” and it makes me nauseous. They expect me to be all of these things and become thing I don’t even understand, but it’s _different_ for me! I _do_ want to find someone! I want— I want something that’s not— that’s not right— I-I think I’m…”

“I’m sorry,” was all Erik could have managed. Nicky had stared at him, breath desperately trying to steady itself. He’d been shaking, crying. It was obvious this was the first time he’d said anything like this outloud. Maybe even admitted it at all.

Erik knew, he’d been through it before.

“I understand.”

When he had reached out, and Nicky didn’t flinch, Erik pulled him in and held him. It hadn’t been what Nicky expected, but it was the first time Nicky buried his fists into Erik’s shirt and let everything out. Erik held him until there was nothing left of either of them. Until the guilt and sympathy had drained away and Erik could look at Nicky and know something had changed.

The funny thing is that it had been platonic at the time.

 

* * *

 

“Dogs die,” Nicky tells him in the middle of the night. Erik, shocked to hear anything about the dog conversation come out of Nicky’s mouth first, turns over and finds Nicky’s profile in the dark.

“Excuse me?”

“They die too quickly.” Nicky says, and looks over at him. “I can’t stand the thought of people leaving me again. If we got a dog and gave her a home and a name and love and… and then she died, I don’t know how I’d handle it.”

Erik takes a deep breath, and slowly reaches for Nicky’s hand under the sheets. “We don’t have to,” he tells him.

“But I’m considering it,” Nicky says, sliding his palm against Erik’s. “I… I want to move on.”

“It’s alright if you take your time, you know,” Erik promises. “I just really love dogs.”

“Trust me, I know. And you know what?” Nicky’s gaze softens. “Maybe I want to live with the fact that you really like dogs instead of the fact that I’m scared everyone will leave me one day."

It’s a few careful moments before Erik tugs Nicky into a loose embrace. Nicky rests his head in the crook of Erik’s neck and sighs, fingers tracing lines into Erik’s stomach.

“Maybe you could just live with the fact that I’ll always be scared of losing you,” Erik tells him, playing with Nicky’s dark hair.

“Maybe we both worry too much.”

“That’s why we’re terrible for each other.” To that, Nicky swats his arm. And then presses his lips against Erik’s shoulder. And Erik’s mouth. And chest. And everywhere else.

 

* * *

 

“You’re going to have to get into exy one day,” Nicky tells him when he returns with tea and a blanket. Erik makes a face but doesn’t protest when Nicky switches the television on to a rerun of a Bearcats match. “I’ll get you into it soon enough.”

He throws the blanket over Erik as Erik stubbornly drinks his tea and doesn’t move. Nicky throws his legs over Erik’s and tweets something before turning his attention to the match. Erik shifts into a more comfortable position. “Is that a challenge?”

Nicky waves a hand. “For now, we will be watching every one of the Foxes until everyone I adore graduates. But when my boy Neil becomes a professional Exy player, we’re watching every one of his games.”

“What about Kevin?”

“Him too.” Nicky shrugs, but Erik knows he’s not that dismissive.

“If we do, you’re watching FIFA with me,” he says.

“What? You’re not even friends with anyone who plays in FIFA!” Nicky protests.

“Am I?” Erik winks, and Nicky’s eyes widen for a moment before he gets it and gasps at the sudden joke. Before Nicky can comment on his sparse sense of humor, Erik says, “What if I promised that you wouldn’t have to until we settled down?”

There’s a beat. “Like… after the wedding?”

“After the wedding,” Erik confirms. “And until then, you don’t have to get me to like exy either.”

“After the wedding… with a dog,” Nicky says. Erik blinks in surprise at the sudden challenge. “We have to be married with a dog before you can get me to watch soccer.”

“I know you only say it like that to annoy me,” Erik accuses.

Nicky doesn’t deny it. “Is that a yes?”

“Deal,” Erik tells him, smirks, and gets up to leave.

“Hey!” Nicky sits as Erik disappears into the kitchen with his tea. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To look at dog listings!”

 

* * *

 

“You know,” Lena tells him after she finds Nicky’s picture on Erik’s desk. It’s a more recent one than the one in his wallet; where Nicky is more awkward and youthful than the confident man he’s grown into, but Lena stares at the one in her hands like Nicky is seventeen again. “Nicky’s always running around and trying to take care of everyone, but who’s taking care of him?”

“I am,” Erik says without hesitation.

**Author's Note:**

> Sarah does good art !! Go commission her on her [tumblr](http://ziegenkind.tumblr.com)!!


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